Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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Long before I wrote about weather, I wrote about sports. That era of my life reprises itself in occasional sports analogies in my descriptions of weather.

I've often compared this winter to a baseball game. When it comes to a significant, widespread snowfall this winter, we are two outs deep in the eighth inning of a shutout game.

But perhaps a more fitting analogy for snow fans would be a football game, now in the fourth quarter, in which the weather pattern has crossed midfield a couple of times on its way to trying to snow, but hasn't made it to the "red zone," inside the 20-yard line, even once.

This essentially snowless winter in Roanoke has not been a season of winter storm near-misses. It hasn't been stood up at the goal line or dropped a touchdown pass. It hasn't even come close to a touchdown.

It's been a winter of never-weres and never-have-beens and winter storm wannabes.

The weekend offers another chance for snowfall in Southwest Virginia, but as with every other event this year, it is anything but a slam dunk.

It all depends on a disturbance diving southeast out of Canada.

Most forecast models simply sweep this through the central and eastern United States on Saturday on a track to our north. There is some chance we could collect a light snowfall across the area under that scenario, but there is a better chance that it will take the bulk of its energy and moisture north of us, leaving us with flurries or rain showers.

A few models have tried to be more creative with it, peeling the bundle of atmospheric energy into two pieces. The first weak piece harmlessly zips north of us, but the second hangs back farther west and spins up a large low in the southern states, which becomes a large Eastern U.S. snowstorm. But that scenario looks more unlikely by the moment.

If we don't squeeze at least 1.8 inches of snow out of this weekend, and I'm doubting we will, Roanoke's pursuit of history would become something to seriously consider.

The all-time record for least snowy year in Roanoke is 2.3 inches in 1975-76 (snowfall records run July 1 to June 30, effectively October to April in our region). It didn't snow until March 9 in 1976, which sharply contrasted with many years of copious snow in the 1960s and '70s.

Roanoke officially stands at half an inch. Other areas of Southwest Virginia, particularly those in better line for the upslope snow showers peeling over the mountains from West Virginia on northwest winds, have seen more snow, several inches at a few sites. But there has yet to be a widespread snowfall across Southwest Virginia, and there has been nothing resembling a snowstorm.

There are still a few weeks left when snow is a reasonable possibility, but the likely dominant weather pattern is, at least from here, not looking especially wintry.

Old Man Winter is not down for the count yet, but he's getting bloodied on the ropes. It might be time for the referee to step in and stop the fight.

But maybe, just maybe, there will be a ninth-inning grand slam, or a last-second touchdown pass, or a buzzer shot.